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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26410594">If You Think This Has A Happy Ending</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Treegoats/pseuds/Treegoats'>Treegoats</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abuse, Captivity, Cruelty, Dehydration, Escape, Multi, POV Sansa Stark, Rape, Sansa Stark-centric, Show!Verse, Starvation, Torture</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:14:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,188</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26410594</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Treegoats/pseuds/Treegoats</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa must survive her husband.</p><p>I like Theon very much, but be warned that this is no gentle theonsa.<br/>Be also warned that this is not a fix-it...<br/>It's Sansa's captivity with (and escape from) Ramsay from a Sansa POV.<br/></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Non-Consensual Pairings, Ramsay Bolton/Sansa Stark, Ramsay Bolton/Theon Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy &amp; Sansa Stark, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>If You Think This Has A Happy Ending</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Faced with despair, Sansa decides to cling to her hate.</p><p>This is how you do it: You must push away your fear and loneliness, you must squash your tears and sharpen your mind into contempt and cold fury. Into murderlust. You must want to hurt others in every way you've been hurt, and worse.</p><p>This trick has never come easy to Sansa-- not like to Cersei, not like to Sandor Clegane, not even like to Arya, oh, brave relentless little Arya and Sansa <em>cannot </em>think of her sister now, cannot, else she'll cry, and the last thing she wants to do is cry. Not here, when she, yet again, is surrounded by monsters who murdered her family.</p><p>Sansa, unfortunately, is by nature a crier, not a hater. Little bird, little dove; sheltered, naive, hurtable little Sansa. But she's had teachers in how to hate, in King's Landing and beyond.</p><p>At her side sits Ramsay Bolton and his joyous smile, at her front sits Roose Bolton and his sure sense of power, and over there stands Theon Greyjoy, murderer turned dead-eyed servant, and Sansa knows herself fully and entirely trapped. She's been bought and sold, yet again, she's been tricked and played, yet again, and terror would engulf her, despair would swallow her, if she didn't focus her hate on the abject Theon Greyjoy-- yet another monster who murdered her family.</p><p>She's fully aware of why they show her Theon. It's not to empower her taste of revenge, it's to scare her. Look at what we did to him -- understand what we can do to you. The message is so blunt and clumsy, compared to the finely crafted intrigues she learned on King's Landing, but it's effective. Sansa <em>is</em> very, very scared.</p><p>Theon shuffles over to pour her wine and he <em>stinks</em> and she wants to retch.</p><p>--</p><p>She can't <em>stand</em> the whining in his voice, she can't <em>stand</em> the fear in his eyes, the way he mumbles "Master Ramsay", lips and tongue muted, head cowed. Spineless little coward. Turncloak. Here she is, trying to hide her fear, trying to cling to her dignity, and there he crawls, licking the Bolton's boots. Disgust trickles down her back at the sight.</p><p>--</p><p>His forced apology was made to hurt her and she hates that it does. It hurts, it hurts, <em>it hurts</em>, to know her brothers dead and yet here their murderer stands alive, right in front of her. This sorry shadow of a man took her brothers from her, this rotten creature had the power to take what was so precious. His humiliation adds to her injury. If this is all it takes to destroy the bright light of Bran and Rickon, what does it make of them, and of her, what hope is left?</p><p>--</p><p>And yet, she must have still hoped he'd help her. She must have hoped he'd do something, <em>anything</em>, but stand there and watch. </p><p>Anything at all.</p><p>--</p><p>Because she knew Joffrey, she knew Ramsay the minute she met him. She knew him by Myranda's play, she knew him by the glee in his eyes when he twisted a knife in a wound, she knew him at the sight of Theon Greyjoy and how he revelled in it. She knew.</p><p>But knowing is not <em>knowing</em> and maybe she thought-- maybe she thought she'd escape this, maybe she thought if this happened to her, she'd just drop dead-- maybe, in spite of knowing a danger exactly, in spite of having witnessed, she still thought this wouldn't happen to <em>her</em>.</p><p>But it does, and she doesn't die, and the worst, maybe, is she recognises in the very moment it's happening that he will do it again. This is not her tragic ending. This is only the beginning and how can any person ever bear this?</p><p>--</p><p>What else can she do but beg Theon of House Greyjoy, Theon the Turncloak, her brothers' murderer, the closest she has to family left, Ramsay's loyal servant, for help and for mercy? And she knew, she understood, on some level, that he wouldn't help her, could never help her, and  yet--</p><p>And yet--</p><p>That he doesn't, that he won't even--</p><p><em>Why</em>, Theon,</p><p>why, why, why why</p><p>--</p><p>She cries and cries and cries and that's something new about Ramsay-- that he lets her. No <em>chin up, little dove</em>. No <em>behave like a lady, traitor's daughter</em>. Ramsay locks her in her room during the day, he hurts her at night, and that's the extent of the demands put on her.  She wouldn't even have to get dressed. She certainly doesn't need to hide her tears. In King's Landing she had appearances to keep. She had hoops to jump through. She had games to play.</p><p>Here she is his meat, for fucking. Here she is his flesh, to carve into. She is pillow, to shred. He cares so evidently little, as he unravels her skin from her bones, and she didn't expect she'd ever miss Cersei, but she thinks of her all the time.</p><p>--</p><p>Sometimes, Ramsay goes on a hunt, and Sansa has time for the worst of her wounds to heal. She has time to stare out of her window. She has time to get bored.</p><p>--</p><p>It's Theon, still, who brings her food, who cleans her floor, who carries the keys to her room.</p><p>After the first misunderstandings are out of the way-- turns out he won't help her, not ever, turns out he didn't kill Bran and Rickon, after all-- there is little left to say. She wants to keep the flames of her hatred going, because he <em>still</em> betrayed her brother's trust, and he <em>still</em> sacked her home, and he still <em>wanted</em> to kill Bran and Rickon even if he failed, and he still locks her up every day, keys dangling from his clumsy fingers, and most nights Ramsay comes and tortures her and Theon agrees it's Ramsay's right.</p><p>She is grateful that Bran and Rickon are still alive-- <em>might</em> be still alive--, she is. And she is thankful for the small mercy that Theon is not their murderer. But she is trapped here, and if this goes on for much longer, she will die.</p><p>--</p><p>He's getting tortured, too, she realises. It was obvious, of course, that he'd been broken, but it's one thing to guess, and another to witness the ongoing game that is the saga of <em>Ramsay and his Reek</em>.</p><p>And, oh, how the bastard revels in it.</p><p>--</p><p>She wants to keep the flames of her hatred going, when she sees Theon, but she can barely muster the strength to, and Sansa's always been a crier, and she's allowed to cry, here, and it seems all she wants to do these days is cry.</p><p>--</p><p>Theon fumbles with the keys at her door, she hears. They clank and clank and it's taking him <em>forever</em>, today, to manage the lock. When he creeps into the room, bringing her food, the tray trembles in his hands even worse than usual. She sees the blood, when he sets it down on the table in front of her, sees how he smears it everywhere, how it drips from his flayed fingers - both palms, <em>entirely</em> flayed - and he keeps saying: "Sorry, I'm so sorry," and tries to wipe the blood away, but his every touch makes it worse.</p><p>"Theon, stop," she says, horror twisting in her stomach, but he can't, she knows he can't, and he won't even respond to this name, not any more.</p><p>--</p><p>Ramsay doesn't train her, he doesn't need to, he doesn't care to. He already owns her. She is a woman, and his property. He just hurts her.</p><p>Theon though, Theon was <em>Theon of House Greyjoy, Balon Greyjoy's last living son and heir</em>, and Theon was an enemy, but Reek will never betray Ramsay, and that's-- Sansa can't dare to hope, she can't, but if she wants to survive, if she wants to ever survive, this must be part of the key.</p><p>--</p><p>He comes into her room, food tray and all, and he must move in blind, she thinks, what with the bruise that is his face. His eyes are swollen shut, bloodied slits in black and blue, sweaty hair caked to his gory forehead, nose and lips dripping red. He's trembling-- he's nearly always trembling. In pain, in fear, in exhaustion, she wouldn't even know. All of it, probably.</p><p>He carefully maneuvers his way through the room, finds her table, sets her food with shaking fingers. He's been strangled, too. She can see the swollen marks on his neck, she can hear the laborious whine of his breath. She doesn't ask why. She knows the answer. <em>Reek has been bad</em>, maybe. <em>Master is merciful</em>, probably. And what does it even matter? He hurts her, too.</p><p>She wished all she felt was disgust at the sight of this miserable man turned whipped dog. What use is there for pity, in such a place?</p><p>--</p><p>Sometimes, it's not Theon who brings her food. Sometimes, it's a grim-faced guard, or a sneering boy, and she knows they wouldn't dare touch her, they would never <em>dare</em> touch Ramsay's property, and it's not like she cares about seeing Theon The Turncloak, Reek the Freak. What comfort could he ever be to her? He's a horror.</p><p>--</p><p>He changes her bloodied sheets -- and they are nearly always bloodied -- and he brings her food she likes, and when she won't budge from her seat, won't move for the spoon, he says: "You must eat, Sansa."</p><p>"Why?" she says.</p><p>He cowers and shuffles, scared of his own voice. "To keep your strength?" he ventures, finally.</p><p>She wants to laugh at the farce of it all -- will strength stop the rape, will strength stop the pain? what right does Reek the Weak have to speak to her of strength? -- but she sees the hunger in his sunken eyes, the starvation in his hollow cheeks and asks: "And what does he feed you?"</p><p>He recoils in a twitch. "I-- I don't-- he doesn't allow--," he says, and: "...more than Reek deserves," and his eyes are wet and wide and why did she even ask, when she knew the answer.</p><p>"It's not right, what he does to us," she says. "You know that, right?"</p><p>--</p><p>Every breath hurts, moving hurts, sitting hurts and all she can do all day is look out of her window into the snowy yard.</p><p>Theon is at work. He's nearly always at work, and hard work, too, hauling and shovelling and scrubbing and how much longer can he keep up this labour on top of the torture and starvation-- does Ramsay understand that his toys are breakable, does he care?  He needs Theon alive, he wants Theon alive, but what if he miscalculates? How improbable it seems that he's still alive in the first place. How long until he slips the knife just a bit too deeply under Sansa's ribs, in the thrall of the moment? How long until he rips something so bad she bleeds to death?</p><p>Theon stumbles under the weight of the wood he's carrying, he sinks to his knees and his cargo drops into the snow. He struggles to pick it back up, struggles back to his feet, only to collapse again. He keeps trying and he keeps failing and he sits helplessly in the snow when a guard comes to complain at his slacking. Sansa can't hear them, not from up where she's sitting, but she can see the man's kick against Theon's chin and she can just so imagine the crunch of bone and Reek's crying.</p><p>She looks away, she doesn't want to see this any more.</p><p>--</p><p>She understands he tried to help her. He told her: "Do what he says." He told her: "It can always be worse." He told her: "There is no escape."</p><p>The worst is that she can start to see the wisdom in his advice, she can start to see he was right.</p><p>--</p><p>She tries to escape, of course. How could she not? At this point she must, even if it kills her. At King's Landing she could bid her time, but here, here-- She'll <em>die</em> here, in the place that was once her home. She doesn't want to die, not here, not like this.</p><p>She plans and plots. She watches the rhythm of Ramsay's hunts; she chooses her timing. She tries to bribe the guards. She tries to seduce the boys. She tries to signal with her candle. She tries to tie her sheets together and climb out of the window and it's a stupid plan because where will she go from there and when she fails and they drag her back Ramsay hurts her so bad she can't stand up for days. It's the kind of idea Arya would have come up with and Sansa cries at the memory of Arya, and she cries at her wounds, and she cries from despair.</p><p>She tries to steal the keys from Theon, of course, she tries to coax him to give them to her, but as expected he won't, she tries to <em>order</em> him to give them to her, and he cries and cowers and begs --"Sorry, I'm so sorry"--, but it's no use for he is obedient to one only, she tries to trick them away from him, but he's surprisingly hard to trick, she even <em>fights</em> him for them, she tries to force her way past him when he opens the door, and she should be stronger than him and his broken fingers and his famished limbs but he's a desperate man. She tries to steal the keys from <em>Ramsay</em>.</p><p>--</p><p>It's the totality of her isolation that undoes her, she realises. She learned her lessons, on King's Landing, in the Eyrie, at the side of Margaery and Cersei and Littlefinger, but what use is all of that in the face of stone walls and endless freezing snow and with the only two people she ever gets to talk to being her monster of a husband and his loyal Reek?</p><p>If she only could get through to Theon...</p><p>--</p><p>He allows her Maester's potions and salves, when he hurt her too bad. She's supposed to bear him heirs, he can't destroy her entirely. He wants scars and pain but no festering infection.</p><p>She recruits Theon to help her dress her back, because he's the only one there is, really-- and because she hopes it might move him to action.</p><p>She's been whipped and Theon keeps saying <em>sorry, sorry </em>when he touches her, and she's not sure if it's Ramsay's torture he's apologising for or his own touch.</p><p>"He will kill me," she tells him. "Do you realise that, Theon?"</p><p>His trembling fingers keep applying the salve.</p><p>"Do you want this?" she says. "He will if you don't help me," and it's cruel, she's cruel, but she must escape, she must escape, and she will use every power she has.</p><p>Theon cries silently, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down his dirty face and that's all she will get out of her heartlessness.</p><p>--</p><p>Ramsay invites Theon to her chambers to help rape her, "since you two like each other so much," he laughs, "and he's had his hands all over you already," (<em>The Master knows, he always knows</em>) "he will help me, won't you, Reek?"</p><p>And Theon, wretched Theon, crawls and nods and nods, <em>yes, Master, of course, Master</em>.</p><p>"I trained him well, my little Reek," says Ramsay, "he knows how I like it, don't you, Reek?" and in Theon's trembling and Ramsay's little gleeful slap against Theon's ass she understands he's been raping him, too, and it seems obvious, now, and it shouldn't surprise, what could even surprise her at this point, yet she wished she could unsee the way Theon sinks into practised position, eyes so entirely dead, wished she could forget Ramsay's tearing into him, wished that when Ramsay instructs him how to hold her still for him to better hurt her he wouldn't comply so completely, and wouldn't grip so hard, and then, as always, she just wished the pain would stop.</p><p>--</p><p>She cries and cries and Theon cries and cries and--</p><p>and--</p><p>she can't forgive him, actually, she can't, she can't, and there's nowhere safe to turn her hate to, nowhere left, nowhere--</p><p>and,</p><p>they must escape, she must escape, Gods help her but if she wants there to be anything, <em>anything </em>left of her, she must escape</p><p>--</p><p>"We must escape, Theon," she says, and he doesn't tell her <em>There is no escape </em>because they both know that already and the most surprising thing here maybe is -- where does that "we" come from?</p><p>--</p><p>He sets the food on her table, eyes feverish, lips cracked, blood caking his hair, and when he steps back, he collapses. It doesn't take him half a second to attempt to hastily scramble back onto his feet, but she sets her hand on his shoulder.</p><p>"Theon, wait." She reaches for her water and offers it to him and Theon keeps staring at her hand on his shoulder. "Drink," she says.</p><p>He shakes his head, still trying to struggle back up. "I'm-- it's not allowed."</p><p>"Theon," she says. "Reek," he corrects. "Reek," she says, "he's on hunt. He's not here. He won't even know. Drink."</p><p>He's too scared. "He will know," he whispers. "He always--"</p><p>"I know," Sansa interrupts. "He always knows. But what could he possibly do to you that is worse than what he's already done?"</p><p>Reek's eyes grow wide. "It can always be wors--" he whispers.</p><p>"I know, it can always be worse," Sansa interrupts, "and yet, Theon, can it really?"</p><p>His eyes jump across the room as he no doubt tries to imagine what <em>could</em> be worse. "He'll find something," he decides. "He always finds something."</p><p>"Maybe," Sansa agrees, "and you'll bear it, as you bore it all. Now drink."</p><p>She's not sure what shifts in his eyes, but he reaches two trembling, mutilated hands towards the cup and raises it to his chapped lips and he drinks. Then he picks his broken body up from the floor and locks her back into her room.</p><p>--</p><p>Two weeks later, he leaves the lock open.</p><p><em>It's a trick</em>, Reek and Ramsay's teachings whisper to her, and indeed it is, and yet, this chance she must take.</p><p>And Myranda finds her and Theon is right next to her and Sansa knows he must have told her, must have-- oh, Reek, wretched Reek, why, why, why</p><p>but if this is how she dies, this is how she dies.</p><p>Myranda takes aim, and Myranda shoots and Sansa remembers Theon and his bows, remembers Arya and her bows and if she's to die she wants it to be with a memory of her sister</p><p>(<em>Die? Who said anything about dying? </em>Myranda laughed,)</p><p>--and then,</p><p>Theon grabs Myranda and throws her over the railing</p><p>and Myranda's dead, and Theon's hand is on hers and Ramsay's horns are on their heels and they run--</p><p>--</p><p><em>Nothing can be worse than this</em>, they know, as they jump down the ramparts.</p><p> </p><p>And then she escapes, they escape, they survived and they escaped.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>For an aftermath, if you so want, read <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26515471">To Never Be Known</a></p><p>For an alternate version of this story, from a Reek(Theon) POV, read <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26839423">The Possibility Of Choice</a></p><p>Thanks for reading :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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